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The Dharma of a Leader

The bedside clock flashed 5:12 am. My phone was ringing and I instinctively answered it.

“I need to talk. Nothing is working out. Can we talk?”

Half in a daze, I was trying to figure out what was happening. It was a friend whom I hadn’t spoken to in 6 months.

“My entire business is falling apart. My life is falling apart. I don’t know how to do this anymore. I don’t know how to make this all work.”

We had left school almost a decade ago, and had sporadically exchanged messages on birthdays and holidays. He had gone on to become a successful entrepreneur, leading one of the fastest growing online fashion companies in North America.

He started speaking. At first hesitatingly, testing the waters to see how I reacted, but then in big bursts of vulnerability.

He spoke about his struggles and challenges, the pressures he faces as a leader, and the burden of expectations from his customers, his employees. Not to mention the self-imposed pressure from his family.

“I just had a second kid last month. A girl this time. Did I tell you that?,” he asked.

We spoke for the next hour, trying to abate the mental breakdown he was having. He spoke about his hopes and dreams when he graduated with me. He spoke about all he had accomplished. And through it all, he spoke about the hollowness that came from getting everything he wanted.

His business was struck deep from the CoVID-19 crisis and the economic downturn.

“What I don’t understand is why I feel so empty. What’s going on right now has just increased the weight of hollowness in my heart. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

As the sun started to rise outside my window, I couldn’t help but reflect on the universality of this feeling. Of the challenges that come during critical times when the mind cannot find solutions and the heart’s voice becomes louder. The bumps are felt more sharply in critical times, as the pressure to act is ever greater.

This had been the silent voice in my heart as well, and the voice of many other entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs I work with.

As my friend finished his story and waited for me to respond, I found my mind wandering to the lessons I had learned from observing the friendship between two unlikely people, and a silent practice of my life.

The President and the Monk

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was the man that turned India into a nuclear power. He was a nuclear physicist, the chief scientist of the country, inventor of stents, and a writer of books. He was the chief scientist of the country. He represented the pinnacle of critical and scientific thinking.

He was tasked with the work of finding how to advance India into the 21st century. He scoured far and wide to find answers to this question.

He created a vision that was focused on 6 areas. Food production, healthcare, education, technology, infrastructure, and security. He would consult with politicians and business leaders, scientists and thought leaders on these topics. This vision became his rallying cry. It was this vision that turned him into the most popular President of the country with unanimous support across party lines, and won the admiration and respect of a billion people.

He had heard about Pramukh Swami, a humble monk who had traveled the world with no possessions, without a penny to his name. He had heard about his love and compassion and how it had brought clarity and focus to the hearts of thousands across all walks of life. Dr. Kalam wanted to meet this monk.

A Muslim scientist meeting a Hindu monk. This was never meant to be more than a formal meeting of two leaders to exchange pleasantries.

Dr. Kalam presented his vision to Pramukh Swami who listened quietly with a smile on his face. At its end, the monk decided to suggest something.

“In addition to these areas you have spoken about, add one more: Faith. Nothing will happen without faith. It is faith that will bring people together. It is faith that will change the vision of people. It is faith that will unite.”

As Pramukh Swami kept talking, something started to shift inside Dr. Kalam. He had found the missing factor in all his critically thought out plans. It was the hidden dimension that he had not considered.

Faith.

Dr. Kalam found an awakening in his spiritual consciousness by that meeting. Over the next 14 years, he had 8 more meetings with Pramukh Swami. The final book of his life was titled “Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Swamiji.”

This is altogether remarkable since Dr. Kalam was a Muslim, who learned his most profound lesson from a Hindu monk.

In it, he wrote “[Pramukh Swami] has indeed transformed me. He has removed I-ness and My-ness from my life. He is the ultimate stage of the spiritual ascent in my life… Pramukh Swamiji has put me in a God-synchronous orbit. No maneuvers are required any more, as I am placed in my final position in eternity.”

This is the lesson we must embrace again.

Spiritual Leadership

The concept of spirituality feels taboo. This is meant to be a deeply personal and intimate area of life, not meant to be discussed openly and in public, let alone in the cold sterile corporate environments we often find ourselves in. After all, no one wishes to impose their views on another.

But this viewpoint stems from a lens where for one perspective to be true, another one has to be false. The lens through which Pramukh Swami was operating, and the lens through which much of the Dharma traditions of the East operate claim that there are multiple answers on the path of spirituality. No one path becomes wrong for another to be right.

From this perspective, the personal becomes universal. It becomes a means of exploring, understanding, and learning from others to broaden one’s own repertoire.

Peter Drucker felt similarly. He writes in Landmarks of Tomorrow, his lesser cited work: “Society needs a return to spiritual values–not to offset the material but to make it fully productive…Mankind needs the return to spiritual values, for it needs compassion.”

A broader spiritual consciousness lies at the very heart of widening the vision of a leader. A spiritual consciousness is what elevates the ability of a leader to lead in critical times. It is not critical thinking, the ability to think like an algorithm that defines critical times.

A true spiritual lens is also meant to be practical, not reserved for yogis and theologians. Limitations of Knowledge & Power It is tempting to think that the work of a leader during critical times is to gather more knowledge and power so that one may lead more effectively.

In response, Drucker writes in Landmarks of Tomorrow that “knowledge and power have been problems of man since the Garden of Eden. Now they are in the center of his existence. The solution to them which the new age finds will, in the last analysis, determine its character and meaning. If it fails to solve them, it will not only be a dark age…it may well be the last age of man — and conquest of space will not alter this. If however the new age succeeds in solving these problems, it could become one of the greatest eras of man.”

More knowledge, information or power will not help one lead better. To lead through critical times, we must think outside of ourselves, outside of the prejudices and snap judgements that the human mind is prone to. To not let ourselves be influenced by cold hard numbers that give the illusion of certainty.

Therefore, good judgement and the courage to act stems from the ability to get out of one’s ever-changing mind. After all, how can one make a tough decision when we are influenced by the problems of the world, by our own stories, prejudices, and priorities?

The Dharmic idea of spirituality offers a way to help us step outside of ourselves.

The Lessons of Spirituality

The dharmic lens teaches us that the greatest illusion and delusion we harbour is the belief that we are this body and this mind. We believe the story of us as definite. We cannot imagine a world that exists after we have passed on. We insert ourselves and our legacy into everything. But it is your true self that allows the body and mind to exist, to perceive, to experience, to be conscious. This consciousness is the real you. Not the body and the mind that you inhabit. This consciousness or awareness is the experiencer of everything that you consider to be “your” life. Thus, “you” are completely distinct from it all. This is not an intellectual exercise, but a plane of existing and seeing if one pauses and tries.

The dharmic lens asks: Who are you?

Consider this. Look at a picture of yourself as a baby. You were that person, yet somehow, that person you see is a different person than what you are now. It seems like a completely different person altogether. All those memories, all those moments—were you any of those?

In other words, at what point did you become you? Was the child, the newborn photo not you as well? Yet, that baby can seem like a different person completely to what you feel like today. Similarly, if that person—the boy or girl, seems like a distant person, perhaps a different person altogether, then it is equally possible that the person whom you believe to be you right now is not you either.

On closer introspection, we realize that the mind’s conception of “you” is flawed. It takes an amalgamation of your memories and makes it your identity. This identity always keeps changing. The mind’s conception of you is also ever changing.

When we keep asking ourselves this simple question “who am I?” we are forced to realize that all the problems, successes and failures, the weight and pressure that we feel as leaders are not really ours after all. They belong to the body and the mind.

Like the bulb that gives light to a room, it is the consciousness of our true self that gives light to the body and mind, which allows us to think, which allows us to feel. It challenges the adage “I think therefore I am.” It tells us instead to realize “I am, therefore I think.”

When we live and lead from this perspective, we are able to see the critical challenges we face more dispassionately. It removes the burden of leadership and gives us courage to act with our conviction. It removes our ego and lets us lead with freedom.

In Action

In January 2001, a 7.7 ML earthquake had devastated Western India. More than 20,000 people died, and more than 160,000 people were injured. Everyone was completely unprepared for this. Pramukh Swami, the humble monk who had advised Dr. Kalam, was one of the first on site in the areas which were most affected.

He inspired other monks who would otherwise spend their time in a monastery to serve others. Spirituality after all is meant to help us live in the world, not retreat from it.

Many months later, President Bill Clinton was visiting India and had decided to visit the affected sites. His work led him to be introduced to the work of Pramukh Swami. A brief 5 minute meeting was scheduled between the two leaders.

But 5 minutes became 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes. Their dialogue happened through the intermediary of an imperfect translator, and yet President Clinton felt a sense of ease and peace in the presence of Pramukh Swami.

He later remarked: “When I look into his eyes, they are filled with integrity. I saw in his eyes that he is a man who has not come ahead by eclipsing others. He has come forward by always placing others before him.”

A simple monk like Pramukh Swamiji had just received the validation, recognition, and attention of a world leader with considerable power and ability.

Far from being elated however, Pramukh Swamiji immediately spotted two brothers in a distance who had arrived from a nearby village. As soon as the President left, he went to the two brothers and started talking with them asking them about their families, their safety, their accomodations on the volunteer grounds. He arranged for their meals, and consoled them through their crises.

This is the essence of the spiritual leader. Someone who can completely step outside of themselves, and not be bound by praise, personal biases, or the weight of an ego.

Perhaps it is this state of realization that helped so many people, including President Clinton, and Dr. Kalam experience such profound love and peace from him.

Perhaps it was this spiritual leadership that inspired Dr. Kalam to remove the “I-ness and My-ness in life…where nothing else remains to be done.”

The Effective Human

As I shared my experiences, insights, and anecdotes with my friend, I heard him confused at first. But this state of being outside of himself sounded so appealing to him, that he committed himself to a process of self-inquiry to help him touch this experience more tangibly. He committed to asking himself two questions:

• Who am I?
• And if I am not that, then who am I?

The first question engages the mind to give an answer, while the second question gets one to go continuously deeper. He committed to repeatedly ask himself these two questions in a regular meditation practice.

The last time I spoke with my friend, he had scaled down his operations to tide through the shifting landscapes. He had to let go of some staff, but he paid them well above what was required of him. He is happier now too, less stressed about running his business.

I too find myself asking these two questions above. As I deal with unemployment, economic turmoil, and the barrage of anxiety producing news, when panic and anxiety overwhelm me, I try to find a center of existence through these two questions.

Who am I? And if I am not even that, then who am I?

More than anything else, finding and identifying with this unchanging core as the real me has been the most effective way I have found of leading and managing myself.

Now more than ever, we must find a way to incorporate this spiritual lesson if we are to lead effectively through these critical times.

This type of dharmic spirituality, the lessons that Pramukh Swami transmitted and helped Dr. Kalam experience, is not just the need of an effective executive, but of an effective human.

Bibliography

Abdul Kalam, A. P. J., and Arun Tiwari. Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Swamiji. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India: Harper Element, 2015.

Aksharvatsaldas, and Trivedi Yogi. Eternal Virtues: Spiritual Attributes of Pramukh Swami Maharaj. 2. ed. Ahmedabad: Swaminarayan Aksharpith, 2011.

Drucker, Peter F. Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New “Post-Modern” World. New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A: Transaction Publishers, 1996.

Drucker, Peter F. Managing Oneself. Harvard Business Review Classics. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press, 2008.

Drucker, Peter F. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done. New York, NY: Harper Business, 1967.

Be Human, Be An Imperfectionist

Perfectionism is the greatest trap we fall in. Our entire society, our businesses, our culture runs on this idea. We’re all lesser for it.

This past week, I had a meeting scheduled with a successful entrepreneur in Atlanta. Before the call, I started hoping he wouldn’t attend the call. I was unsure of what value I had to contribute to him. I was thinking about all the ways I fall short in life.

We try so hard to be perfect, to keep up an image that others have about us. Even the image that we have for ourselves.

“I was meant for more. I should’ve been further along. Why am I like this?”

We beat ourselves up. In this way, we become our own worst enemies.

It’s hard to not feel defeated, overwhelmed, out of breath sometimes when everyone else around us appears to be running ahead just fine. Everyone else appears more accomplished, more fit, richer, with better relationships and partners.

We’re all in this. Men and women who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s who are afraid to admit they have any feelings of doubt, insecurity, vulnerability, loneliness.

“Oh no, everything is going great!” they say with a fake cheeriness.

Businesses and governments put on an armor of invulnerability. Everything is structured, static, sterile. There’s a reason why hundreds of millions across the world with these jobs are dissatisfied, disengaged, and unhappy in their work. They feel they have to suppress a big part of themselves to do the work. Their vulnerabilities, their doubts, their fears.

I am giving up this idea. Embracing imperfectionism is freeing. It lets us connect with others more authentically. Happiness, satisfaction, success, growth all comes from rich connections and relationships. This is possible when I don’t have to pretend to be perfect.

This is not about avoiding progress. This is not about stopping ourselves from improving.

Just to be clear…

This isn’t a “trick” to make you happier. Remember, the unrealistic, ridiculous side of this coin is perfectionism. The idea that we can do anything perfectly is completely and irreversibly contrary to logic, the history of mankind, and every person’s experience.

Against a giant tortoise, we’re all speed demons! Against a cheetah, even Usain “The Human Lightning” Bolt will get embarrassed. Your confidence in your foot speed depends on what relative benchmarks you consider to be adequate, poor, or remarkable…Every confidence benchmark is arbitrary, so we may as well create our own.

The two quotes above are from Stephen Guise and his excellent book How to be an Imperfectionist.

We don’t have everything in our lives figured out. That’s okay. We’re all going to be okay. I don’t want to be perfect anymore for anyone else. It takes too much energy.

When I started talking with the entrepreneur, I decided to be a bit bold and tell him about this feeling of insecurity I felt when we started the call. And it was such a relief. We connected authentically and genuinely. It was good.

As a consultant, I am trying to do this with businesses. I want to help businesses make change more human. I want them to account for human psychology, human imperfections in their work. I want organizations to sell without treating someone else like an object.

You can read about what work I am doing here (and if you think of any business that can use a gentler and more human way of managing change and growing, let me know).

I hope this week you will let go of a tendency to be perfect and instead be imperfect while trying to be a bit better. To stop comparing yourself with others. To stop making yourself seem invulnerable. Don’t resist the doubts and fears. In fact, have a conversation with someone who can respect it and your relationship with them will become richer for it.

If the above email resonated with you, join the weekly Ideas newsletter dedicated to connecting thinkers, doers, leaders, teachers, and humans to build the future by connecting the heart and mind.

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Go Outwards to go Inwards

I finished reading this excellent book: The Outward Mindset by The Arbinger Institute. Rarely does a leadership book resound so deeply with me. I found myself highlighting large chunks of the book, and I wanted to share some of the choicest passages from the book with you.

The basic premise of the book tells us that we need to change our mindset and see people as, well, people instead of objects or obstacles to manipulate, push, persuade, or overcome. They are people with their own internal needs, challenges, wants, objectives, hopes and dreams. When we see truly see people for who they are and what they want, make our work about serving them, and constantly adjust to make sure we see people for who they are, we create better families, communities, and organizations.

This is far from a “soft skills” book. Getting this right creates a strategic competitive advantage which cannot be replicated. It creates record breaking profits, low turnover rates, and drives real business results. This set of ideas have been used by SWAT Teams, non-profits, and multinational corporations.

This is similar to the premise of Listen & Lead by Richard Himmer which I wrote about in my two previous posts here and here. This books flows nicely from these other linked articles.

I have seen the power of these ideas in over a decade of my volunteering effort with BAPS, and BAPS Charities. While no one has formalized these ideas in this non-profit organization, I have seen its spirit everyday. The results have been breathtaking as a small organization founded in early 20th century India in a tiny village has grown to become one of the largest international India-based non-profits in the world with a host of activities impacting millions and thousands of centres globally.

I would say that if Arbinger really wants to see how deeply the Outward Mindset is embedded in an organization, they should carefully study BAPS.

Here are the excerpts:

In whatever a person does, his or her mind-set comes through, and others respond to this combination of behavior and mindset. This means that the effectiveness of an individual’s behaviors will depend to some significant degree on that individual’s mindset.

Seeing people as people rather than as objects enables better thinking because such thinking is done in response to the truth: others really are people and not objects.

When my mindset is outward, I am alive to and interested in other people and their objectives and needs. I see others as people whom I am open to helping.

Not caring to notice or be moved by others requires something of me that takes a tremendous personal and social toll: it requires me to feel justified for not caring. I find justification by focusing on others’ faults, real and imagined.

Are there people in your life, either at work or at home, whose needs, objectives, and burdens you resist seeing? How about people that you don’t resist—people with whom you are open, curious, interested, aware?
As you compare these relationships, what differences do you notice in how you feel and act? Can you spot any blame in what you tell yourself about others or any self-justifying narratives that you’ve come to believe

The most troubling areas of our lives will be those in which we resist what the humanity of others invites us to see. This is a hopeful truth.

What is the cost of an inward mindset? When people focus on themselves rather than on their impact, lots of activity and effort get wasted on the wrong things.

Think about the times in your life when you have felt most alive and engaged. Who and what were you focused on in those moments—on yourself or on something bigger that included others?

Real helpfulness can’t be made into a formula. To be outward doesn’t mean that people should adopt this or that prescribed behavior. Rather, it means that when people see the needs, challenges, desires, and humanity of others, the most effective ways to adjust their efforts occur to them in the moment. When they see others as people, they respond in human and helpful ways.

This approach to measuring one’s impact requires nothing but a willingness to stay in regular conversations with others about whether they feel one’s efforts are helping them or not.

While the goal in shifting mindsets is to get everyone turned toward each other, accomplishing this goal is possible only if people are prepared to turn their mindsets toward others with no expectation that others will change their mindsets in return.

For all these reasons—as well as because widespread mindset change happens in large measure in response to those who change first—being able to operate with an outward mind-set when others do not is a critically important ability. It is the most important move.

People misunderstand the most important move we are talking about if they think that working with an outward mindset when others refuse to do the same makes a person blind to reality or soft on bad behavior. It does neither. In fact, what obscures vision and exposes people to more risk is not an outward mindset, which stays fully alive to and aware of others, but an inward one.

If you start with changing mindsets, behavioral transformations can happen quickly.

Whether in rethinking community policing or resolving labor- management disputes, when people see situations that need to change, the temptation is to immediately apply a behavioral solution. That seems like the fast approach. But if mindset is not addressed, it is usually the slow approach to change.

We’re not trying to have a homogenized group of people who work in the same way. Everybody works individually, but they work toward a collective solution. It’s about taking difference and focusing together on results.

Without realizing it, too many leaders assume that the role of leadership is to control.

When I try to impose my ideas on others and thereby refuse to allow them to think, I end up getting in the way more than I end up being helpful. It’s not my job as a leader to have the solution to every problem.

The Schoolteacher’s Lessons and Choosing Yourself

We fail to grow during this time of isolation because of a few unconscious lessons we learned during our time in school. The antidote is to choose ourselves.

We wait too long for others to choose us. We wait for the right schools, universities, employers, partners to choose us. We wait for someone else to give us permission to do what we really want to do. To learn what we want to learn, to make what we want to make.

Self-directed learning via online courses and books are more abundant than ever before. But my mind goes to why we so often fail at following through, on learning ourselves, or insisting that we get the right credentials.

On waiting for someone else to choose us.

The Seven Lesson School Teacher

Meet John Taylor Gatto.

John Taylor Gatto from The Ultimate History Lesson

He was New York State’s and New York City’s Teacher of the Year for 3 years. He took underperforming kids and made them into smart, interesting, curious, and well prepared individuals. In short, he did what great teachers do.

It was during the last year where he won the Teacher of the Year award that he wrote a very public column in the Wall Street Journal announcing that he was quitting teaching for good.

He said he was done harming kids.

He believed that the real lessons of school were very different than what we believe them to be. These lessons are:

Confusion: Schools teach us everything, disconnectedly. Math is different from history is different from science is different from language. But true education is meant to be an in-depth understanding of the world and to develop a skill set that can serve us navigate it. That is how the world functions. Everything is meant to be integrated. Schools teach unrelating everything from everything. It isn’t until much later years where the synthesis of these things come together.
Indifference: Classes are strictly divided into a timetable. English is homeroom, Science is second, and then math. You can have a great teacher at the front of the class, but when the bell rings, you must stop and just shut off your brain and rapidly go do something else. No wonder we struggle at finishing long term projects that matter in our lives in our adult age. No wonder we struggle to keep focus on doing deep work, which is where mastery and greatness happens.
Position: Students are numbered, and they are put in a strict position. You know what your position is, and you don’t like to deviate from it. I see this (and it’s happened with me as well), where it is very difficult to relate and connect with people of different age groups, different socio-economic factors. We know our position, and our world starts revolving only around people in the right class, the right subjects, the right position. This is not the way the real world is supposed to work. No wonder we are so divided. Why we struggle to see the other person.
Emotional Dependence: The golden star stickers in the report card, the permission to go use the bathroom, the rankings and class performance charts. They all teach us that we need someone else to bestow their good graces upon us so that we may express our individuality. There is value in this of course. When we are small children, we need this to teach us social norms to function well. But after a while, we keep chasing the golden star sticker in everything we do, from the universities we want to go to, the jobs we pursue, the vacations we take. Everything is a signal waiting for someone else to validate us and give us permission to be. There is no outlet to fight against this.
Self-esteem dependence: Of course a result of the above issue is that our confidence is highly tied to how someone else approves of us or not. You are constantly evaluated and judged. A quiz a day, a test a week, exams, etc. Most of us remember the relief of the summer vacation. When we returned from these vacations, we ourselves know how little we remember from what we learned the year before. Instead, it was only the things that we were interested in that stayed with us. But despite that, the grade we get can devastate us or make us.
Intellectual Dependence: Someone else always sets the agenda of what we need to learn, and how we must learn. We wait for instructions. Someone tells us we are Wrong (with a capital W) when we get something incorrect. I have barely used the tools from my English classes in school, but yet back then there was a correct way of doing things and an incorrect way. We are supposed to learn self-evaluation. But instead, we wait for others. This carries over to performance and annual reviews in jobs. Instead of focusing on continuous self-driven improvement, we wait for someone else.

Of course the question becomes, if schools are so ineffective, how else are people supposed to learn? But learning was always supposed to be a self-driven thing. And teaching kids to be motivated to self-learn, self-evaluate, and chase their own interests and how it relates to everything else is supremely more powerful.

This isn’t about becoming drop-outs. This is about understanding the hidden lessons we have learned in school and what it has done to us. I highly recommend looking through John Taylor Gatto’s books (do we even have the concentration to read a full book anymore?) to think about alternative ways of learning.

It is heartening to hear things changing. A great family friend whom I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with last month told us she was homeschooling her two kids. She comes from a conservative Hindu family, and she herself has a PhD in Chemistry from a major American university on the west coast. It was amazing to see her insistence on this.

Forced to stay at home, many of us with kids are waking up and are faced with a choice to either hand our kids a screen so they can distract and entertain themselves, or engage in serious self-directed study and learning. Self-directed being the key here.

Consider looking into the unschooling, self-direct learning movements, and home schooling movements if you have kids. These children have and can grow up to be marvelously well rounded and successful people (that’s what the data shows).

In the meantime, we all need to unschool ourselves a little bit as well. The mental baggage can slow ourselves. Being aware of it is sometimes all we need to unload it.

In short, we need to choose ourselves.

That’s how we make this time of isolation into a time of productivity. Where we let our own self-directed curiosity guide us to grow. That is because ideas are powerful.

On great ideas

Ideas are the real currency of this century. I’ve gotten work without resumes and cover letters, just through the strength of ideas. This week alone, I was contacted on Twitter by an entrepreneur for a major (at least for me) business transaction based on the strength of my ideas. I’ve gotten large consulting projects through cold emails and the strength of my ideas. And of course sharing those ideas.

I’d like to encourage all of us to please do share your ideas! What are you learning? What are you thinking about? What are you curious about? Help me be of service to you by either making me a sounding board or someone who can recommend a book, course, or resource to guide you through your curiosity.

I share one idea a week. Consider signing up for it in a weekly newsletter below:

The Prince’s Exile

Life can take us the highest peaks of life and bring us down in a moment. The following is a true story seldom heard off in the Western world of a prince that saw both and how it defined his legacy that teaches us how to manage change.

It was the night before his coronation as the king of the land, a moment of jubilation for everyone.

The king, the ministers, and even the citizens of the land were impressed with Prince Rāma. He had been the perfect prince.

Patient and noble, generous and kind, fair and just. He traveled far and helped the kingdom prosper. He defended the weak when enemies tried to attack the further borders of the kingdom. He maintained diplomatic ties with neighboring rulers and strengthened peace and prosperity across the land.

He was also the oldest of the king’s sons. When the king decided to step down from his responsibilities, it came as a surprise to no one that the perfect Prince Rāma to become the heir-apparent.

Everyone except the handmaiden to the Queen.

The handmaiden to the Queen was a superstitious lady, nosy and bothersome. She had the habit of finding faults in even the best of situations, and in the best of people. Scheming was in her nature, even when it had nothing to do with her.

The Queen was excited about the coronation of her step-son the following morning. Despite being a step-son, they had bonded like mother and son. She saw him as her own son.

“But what of your son, my lady?” said the handmaiden as she helped the Queen prepare to attend the dinner that evening in the royal court.

“What do you mean?” said the Queen.

“If Prince Rāma becomes the King, your own son will live in his shadow. He will be subservient. And who knows? Perhaps the good prince may cease to be so good with the newfound power,” said the haggard handmaiden.

“Do not be so insolent when you speak of your Prince and your future King,” said the Queen firmly.

“Sorry my lady! I am just an old woman who knows nothing and just rambles. Of course. Don’t mind me,” and with that, she went about her business and left the Queen.

But the seed of doubt was planted.

Better men than him have gone mad with power. What if he hurts my own son? What can I do to prevent this?

The queen could barely eat dinner. After the dinner with the court, she went to the King and started talking.

“Oh King! You are my husband, and today I want to ask you of a favour the night before you step down. Do not deny me this wish.”

“Anything! Ask! I have never denied anything you have asked and today is a happy day for tomorrow my Rāma will take my place!”

The Queen was silent was a while, and the King looked at her expectantly.

“Say it! I will not deny you. I swear by my honor as a king and your husband.”

“Then hear me oh great King! If your vow to me right now is true, I wish that my own son be crowned the king and that Prince Rāma be exiled into the forest.”

Silence.

It was an age with the word of the King was bound by honor. If a great man made a vow, upon his life he had to fulfill it no matter what.

“Ask anything else but this! What has come over you? This is the first I have heard talks of such madness!”

But the Queen was firm. She did not relent no matter how much the King tried to console her. No matter how much the King tried to show her reason.

He is the right person for this.

He will treat you well. He sees your son as his very brother.

Rāma has never hurt anyone unjustly.

No, no, no.

The Queen remained firm and the King was left without words. He fell to the floor and became like a ghost, unable to tell his son what he was honor-bound to fulfill.

Morning came and the kingdom did not know what was to come.

But the old handmaiden of the Queen had heard everything. And soon, the message went out.

In corners of the palace, and then the kingdom, the citizens were aghast! They thought it was a rumor.

Until Prince Rāma woke and received the message.

On the morning of his coronation, he received a message that changed his destiny. So close to the culmination of his power, he remained stable. Neither upset nor elated, he had taken his impending coronation with the same equanimity with which he took this message of his exile.

He went to meet his father the King and his step-mother the Queen to confirm the news. His silent father could barely speak, but the news were confirmed.

He immediately went to his quarters, removed all the finery he wore, and prepared to leave the Kingdom. His very home.

Before he left, he went to seek the blessings from his father and his step-mother as well. He remained unaffected by the dualities of honor and shame. When the fruit of his life was snatched before his very eyes, he dealt with the tides of fate with calm, with joy and happiness.

*No, that is not my wedding photo. It is a still from The Rāmāyan, a serialized adaption from his life. This is a still that shows the actors that play Rām and his wife Sitā in garb.*

I have been thinking a lot about Prince Rāma this past week.

When he faced such an extreme event (and many many many others) over his lifespan, he showed that it is possible to live a life of equanimity.

I’d like to make the case that it is this peace of mind that should be the very goal of our lives!

Perhaps your life has been turned around overnight. But like Rāma, we too can learn to have peace of mind.

I’ve been reading this book The Elephant in the Brain that makes a convincing case that close to 90% of the things we do in our life are to signal to others, improve our social status, and receive attention for it.

The schools we attend: we go for the most prestigious schools so that we can signal to others about our intelligence.

Our professions are often a way to showcase either how smart and capable we are based on the companies we build or the job titles we hold.

Even the charity we work we do is often fused with the thought of the recognition and social status we receive from it.

Our homes, cars, and many other parts of our life are often done to signal to others that we are smart, good-looking, successful, and capable people.

Rāma had all these things going for him already. But it was ultimately his ability to have peace of mind that makes hundreds of millions of people remember him, even centuries after he is no more.

It was his peace of mind, his ability to stay calm under the extreme dualities of life that makes us remember him.

It was his character that mattered more. It helped him then, and it makes us remember him now.

And this is the case with life.

We chase all external signals of success, status, and affiliation. Countless more people have done that already.

Status, success, affiliation goes up and down. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But is only peace of mind that can keep you still. Peace of mind can give you more than any status, success or failure can give you.

Unless you make a deliberate attempt at making peace of mind the ultimate goal of life, it will not happen. Until we make signals of status the main goals of life, we cannot find fulfillment and meaning.

Studying the life of great people like Prince Rāma can be more instructive on how to live life and achieve something meaningful in life.

I hope that you too will make attaining peace of mind your ultimate goal in life.

If you are interested in reading the story of Prince Rāma, popularly known as The Rāmāyana, I can recommend 2 versions:

A shorter version with beautiful paintings found here.
A longer version here.

Both are non-affiliate Amazon links.

It’s one of the greatest epics of the ancient world and I highly recommend it.

I hope you are doing well through these times and the story of Prince Rāma above will give you pause and give you something to think about as you start this coming week.

Please share this with others who might appreciate the message here and join our tribe.

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

I was catching up with a friend yesterday who has been worried about his job, his family, his spouse, and just the state of the world with everything happening right now. He is also a medical professional, so he has been seeing the CoVID crisis unfold in front of his eyes. He had the weekend off, but was not looking forward to taking the plunge again on Monday.

Perhaps you are in a similar boat.

We spent the next 1.5 hours talking and he started telling me about some of the things he’s trying to do to stay grounded.

Our conversation turned to philosophy and theology, and at the end of the conversation, he felt a lot better.

I wanted to share some of the ideas from it below. They come from The Bhagavat Gita, an ancient Vedic Hindu text that trickled across the world to become the basis of Stoicism. It inspired Emerson, Thoreau, and its ideas were incorporated into Buddhist teachings. It is the original text on Yoga as well.

The Gita is a conversation between Arjuna the warrior and Krishna his charioteer. The conversation is really a meditation that happens on a battlefield before the start of a war.

Arjuna asks to ride into the center of the battlefield to survey the land and the enemies. Krishna obliges. Upon looking at the enemies he has to face from afar, Arjuna loses heart. He feels he is incapable of fighting this war.

We too are warriors fighting our own daily struggles. In the face of all this, we too can lose heart.

He loses courage and wants to give up. But he asks his charioteer Krishna to tell him what to do. He gives up all of his ego in the face of the challenge in front of him and instead surrenders to the wise Krishna.

I believe this is the first part of any meditation (or prayer). Completely surrendering our mind so that we are open to receiving an answer, a response to the stress in our lives.

This means letting go of the ego that wants to control every thing. As smart, intelligent, driven & successful people, we are used to getting our way. We want to always be in control. It is hard to let go of control. But the process of real transformation happens when we surrender, let go, and trust so that a better answer can come to us. So that we can find a means of going on.

Sorry, there is no meditation app that can help you do this. And despite what people might think, sometimes they are more of a crutch (necessary at the beginning of your practice, but something you will eventually need to give up).

Read: Buddhism scholars: Meditation apps are fueling tech addiction, not easing stress

Ego will prevent us from learning and growing. Pride can prevent us from learning the right things. Arjuna surrendered unconditionally and opened himself up.

This letting go must come from a sense of knowing that we will be looked after, that our highest and best good is coming our way.

Krishna tells him to rise up and let’s Arjuna know that this “cowardice is unbecoming of him.”

Krishna tells him: “There has never been a time where you and I have not been. The body changes from young to old. In the same way, the life goes as well from birth to birth. You are not this. You are not these problems. But you are greater than all this. You are the spirit, the atma that brings consciousness to this body and mind.”

Modern science tells us that we are not just the body. We’ve gone up to “we are the mind” part.

“I think therefore I am.”

But there is a higher level still. Through all the changes when we had the identity of a baby, and the future identity we will have as we age, it has always been. This entity is the real you.

We are not the body, nor are we the mind. You and I still are even if we are asleep, when no conscious thoughts are in our mind. And we are certainly more than a physical machine with bio-chemical processes.

The body has changed. Identities have changed, but you have remained. This you is the real you. What we call in our culture, the atma.

What is this atma like? It is not born. It does not die. Like a cloth is old, we throw it away, in the same way, we get rid of a body once its work is done. The atma moves on to another life. To know this is the mark of an intelligent person.

Otherwise, we see birth and death each day. If that truly is all that life is, then it is natural that we become overwhelmed when the slightest thing happens to our bodies, our minds. And when these things start happening to our loved ones. This type of excessive attachment is not love.

If we stay in that framework, than life will always shake us. Change will shock us. Aging will scare us. When we don’t get what we want, our minds will become unhappy, stressed. We end up fighting with the nature of life itself which is ever fluctuating and temporary. That is the root cause of unhappiness.

Contemplating about this is the real key. When we start thinking that our worries are not us, when our thoughts are not us, when our body is not us, when this identity that we inhabit of a doctor, entrepreneur, artist, writer, etc is not truly us, then our worries start to subside.

When we start thinking of our eternal natures, our stress and worries goes away. We feel freer to think and act in a way that helps us grow.

I believe more than at any other time, we need to meditate in this form.

First, we must surrender all ideas about who we are. Man or woman, our professions, our bank accounts, our employment status, our businesses, our intelligence, talents, and everything else.

Then we must contemplate on our own eternal natures that always is.

This goes beyond the meditation apps that makes you calm down in the moment, but leaves you ungrounded in the face of overwhelming life challenges. In the face of our own mortality.

And if we can introspect on this idea this Sunday afternoon, then we will be better ready for the week, and indeed our lives.

Corona Calmness: A free mini-program made by me

I made a resource: Corona Calmness. It’s a self-guided program that takes 15-30 minutes per session to help you deal with the anxiety of our present times.

I did it based on Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavior Therapy techniques. You can get it for free if you type in FULLOFF. If you find it useful, consider sharing it with others. I’ll keep it online for another week and if it isn’t used by anyone, I’ll take it down. It’s less philosophical, if you aren’t into that sort of thing.

Some Questions for you

Did the above make sense to you? Do you feel it is too extreme? Did I miss a subtlety that I should clarify?

What are you working on and where are you stuck? Personally or professionally. I’m here to help you.

Do share your answers!!

Finally, if you think there is anyone you think would enjoy this newsletter as well, please forward it to them, or share this link with them to get them to sign up.

Finding Certainty in Uncertain Times

For those feeling overwhelmed (hint: it’s all of us), the wrong thing to do is to impose our will on the world. The best thing to do is to find what’s certain in our lives.

For those feeling overwhelmed (hint: it’s all of us), the wrong thing to do is to impose our will on the world.

You see a lot of this happening on talk shows, on the news, social media, and elsewhere.

Everyone is trying to guess what is going to happen next, what the worse case scenario is going to be. We share that kind of material with others.

Except all of it is just manufactured. Everyone is just guessing.

And the most outrageous, apocalyptic the prediction, the more attention they will get.

There is a thick line that separates being informed and being obsessed.

The fact is simple: We all know what we need to do. We need to

maintain social distance.
Not hoard food and supplies (there is no real shortage as long as people don’t hoard) and work as best as they can.

Even on the economic front, there is hope with a bill that will give each adult in the US $1,200 and $500 per child.

In such times, the best thing to do is to find what’s certain in our lives.

What I’m leaning into

I wanted to share a few areas of my life that I am certain about that gives me hope and has significantly helped me reduce my stress. It has helped me deal with this situation, and find ways to help others (something I hope to share next week…I’m very excited about it!)

Gratitude

If you have your health, that is a blessing. If you have some wealth (savings), that is a blessing. If you have people around you that love you, that is another blessing.

If you look, you will find many areas in your life that you can grateful for.

It is tempting to look at all the things that are changing in times of uncertainty. It is much more useful to look at all the things that haven’t changed.

This doesn’t mean ignoring the lack, but you can address the lack a lot better if you can be grounded in what you have first.

The world is good

Gratitude helps and it seems into something that my faith and my guru have taught me that there is a higher power, and that this higher power is not my enemy, that whatever will happen will be for the best.

This idea has always been a source of tremendous strength to me throughout my life. Even in times of lack, in times of helplessness and desperation, I have tried to revive this thought.

The positive expectancy from this thought has helped me bounce back from any adversity.

If you have things that are lacking in life, thinking about the lesson, the gift, the blessing found within this situation can be very good.

Reflection and Faith

Ever since I was a child, I was taught by my guru to start off the day with a powerful meditation and prayers.

In this meditation, I reflect on the fact that I am not this body, and I am not this mind that I believe to be me. I am not Dhawal Tank. I am not my identity. I am not this person who was born in 1989, has had so many experiences, has all these relatives, has all these accomplishments and failures. I am not this situation, and I am not these emotions. I am not this intelligence, or my academic qualifications.

I am that which empowers and inhabits this body and mind. I am the eternal consciousness that has been through countless such bodies and minds. it is indeed the light of my consciousness that enables the mind and body to think, feel, move, and act. My source of misery, of being shaken in trying times (and getting too comfortable and egoistic during the good times) has been my false identification with the body and mind.

Instead, identify with this eternal self. The soul. The atma.

This insight is extremely freeing. It reminds me that death is certain at some point or another. This is not a painful thought. Death is only of the body and the mind, not of who I am, who is eternal and conscious.

And within my soul resides a higher power.

You may call this God, the universe, a higher power, Bhagwan, or anything else.

During my morning meditation and prayers, I solidify my faith in this higher power, and remind myself that I am being looked after, that my thoughts and prayers are being heard and being answered.

It is unfortunate that faith has become such a private and taboo thing that we don’t talk about publicly.

In my experience with senior leaders at major organizations, the majority of them rely on some form of faith and prayer to ground them and guide them through tough times.

This is a time to be public about it. Not to proselytize (something that is not promoted in my faith), but to make it normal and okay to do this and give others as well a chance to rely on this essential source of strength.

A rise in consciousness

People are waking up and realizing that their choices matter. Their consumption choices are directly related to the emergence of pandemics, climate change, and suffering.

That no choice is truly “personal.” Each choice creates demand for more of it.

READ: Bats are not to blame for coronavirus. Humans are.

It was humans encroaching into more land, trading live animals, that created the conditions where this pandemic spread.

In fact, the worst epidemics in recent history have all been related to humans consuming animals in some capacity or another and the animal agriculture and trade related to it.

Since the 1918 avian H1N1 bird flu, every pandemic has originated from animals.

In fact, the number one cause of deforestation is to clear space to raise animals for milk and meat. When forests are cleared, wild animals, often the vectors of disease end up crossing species and affecting us.

Over-fishing has similar affects.

Animal agriculture around the world is so outsized and concentrated, breeding grounds for the next pandemic exist wherever animal agriculture exists.

This is not just a Chinese problem. In fact, the H1N1 Swine flu originated in America.

And if CoVID-19 has affected us all so severely, imagine a world where antibiotics stop working! At the rate which we feed animals antibiotics in the world, we are setting ourselves up for the emergence of superbugs for which no antibiotics work.

This means a world where even routine surgeries, UTIs, and other diseases considered cured can kill us. This is not a work of fiction, but one of the World Health Organization’s top priorities beyond this ongoing pandemic.

It is becoming increasingly clear that our demand for animal products has led to this state of affairs.

There is no alternative but for all of us to abandon animal products and switch to plant based lifestyles that significantly reduced negative externalities.

(Before the sleuths here say what about e.coli in lettuce, you should know that this bacteria was transferred onto the lettuce from infected animal manure used as fertilizer).

People are waking up to this fact, and I believe this rise in consciousness is great. We are likely to see a more vegan world in the future. Of course being vegan will not only significantly reduce the emergence of such pandemics (plants and humans are just too different as species), but will increase overall health markers in us meaning less heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, etc. Of course the tremendous reduction in animal suffering is the cherry on top as they won’t be bred in the first place as demand falls.

I think this is a very positive development. People are already stocking up on beans, pasta, rice, bread, corn, potatoes, and other staples that they would eat as vegans. Many of them will find their health improving as well.

Now more than ever, being vegan is the most impactful thing you can do for your health, the health of the planet, and to reduce suffering.

I hope these ideas are helpful to you. If nothing else, it is a way for me to express that I am doing okay and I hope are as well. But if not, do reach out to me, even if it is just to talk!